Net Heads

Huge numbers of brain cells may navigate small worlds

About 40 years ago, the late psychologist Stanley Milgram tapped into the commonsense notion that "it's a small world." Milgram asked 60 people to send a folder to a certain individual whom none of them knew. Participants were given a little information about the target person and asked to mail the folder to a friend or acquaintance who, in their view, was more likely to know the stranger than they were. Each recipient of the folder was asked to do the same, until the material reached its destination.

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